Going Potty in Space
Yes, someone at NASA actually had to figure this out cause, well, going potty ain’t very easy to do when gravity ain’t there to help you out. I give you an astronaut telling us how it works: Yeah. Sort of takes the fun out of shooting stars doesn’t it? (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Interview w/ Edward Willett
Thanks again to Mr. Willett for doing this interview with me. Enjoy! Thanks for doing this interview with me. To start off, tell us a little about yourself. Who are you? Why are you here? (Okay, you don’t have to answer the last one, because that’s a broad and mostly random question) Basically, a little bio if you will. As my mother used to say, “I’m here because I’m not all there.”A brief bio: I was born in Silver City, New Mexico, in July of 1959 (an event in which aforementioned mother played a very important role). We moved from New Mexico to the panhandle of Texas when I was two, and when I was eight, we moved from Texas to Weyburn, Saskatchewan. My father was a preacher in the Church of Christ and also a schoolteacher, and was offered the opportunity to move to Weyburn to teach at Western Christian College, a high school and junior college affiliated with the churches of Christ. From my point of view, this meant I started school in Texas (where I skipped the first grade—which, combined with my summer birthday, always made me by far the youngest kid in my grade) and then continued it in Saskatchewan. This gave me first-hand experience at being a stranger in a strange land and may well have contributed to my interest in science fiction, although the more immediate reason for my interest was that my two older brothers both read the stuff and thus it was always around the house.I attended Western Christian College in Weyburn through high school and first-year university, then went to Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas (also affiliated with churches of Christ), to study journalism. (It was the school my parents attended and where they met.) I graduated in December, 1979, and in January, at the ripe old age of 20, started work at the Weyburn Review weekly newspaper as a reporter/photographer, eventually adding weekly columnist and editorial cartoonist to my duties. After four years I became news editor. In 1988 I moved to Regina, Saskatchewan, as communications officer for the fledgling Saskatchewan Science Centre, among other things researching and writing copy for all of the exhibits being built. In 1993 I left that job and have been a fulltime freelance writer ever since. My first books were all computer books with exciting titles like Using Microsoft Publisher for Windows 95. From there I branched into children’s non-fiction and have written a plethora of children’s science books (Ebola Virus, Careers in Outer Space, etc.), biographies (Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Ayatollah Khomeini, etc.), histories (The Iran-Iraq War, The Mutiny on the Bounty) ever since.My first novels were published by miniscule or, in one case, now entirely non-existent, companies. They were all YA science fiction or fantasy: Soulworm was first, then The Dark Unicorn; then came Andy Nebula: Interstellar Rock Star and Spirit Singer. My first adult novel was Lost in Translation, first published by Five Star, then picked up in paperback by DAW. My most recent is, of course, Marseguro, also published by DAW.I’m a professional actor and singer as well as a writer, though that’s more of a sideline: the last thing I did in that regard was play several roles in a professional production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast in Saskatoon over Christmas.I’m married (to an engineer—good career move on my part!) and have one daughter, who just turned seven. What are you currently reading, what do you plan to read, and what have you just finished reading? I’m currently reading, with my wife, Terry Pratchett’s Making Money. On my own, I’m halfway through the Septimus Heap children’s fantasy trilogy by Angie Sage. Before that, I read Scott Westerfeld’s YA SF Uglies trilogy. Young adult fantasy and science fiction was my first love and I hope to write more of it, so I read quite a bit of it. The last non-fiction book I read was Empire of Blue Water by Stephan Talty (pirates! Aarrrr!). Up next? Probably Naomi Novik’s latest Temeraire book, Victory of Eagles. Joe Haldeman’s The Accidental Time Machine and Jack McDevitt’s Cauldron are also near the top of my pile. Who are some of your writing influences? Favorite authors, past and present? Growing up, on the SF side, Robert Heinlein was undoubtedly my main SF influence, as he was to so many others. Along with Isaac Asimov and, to a lesser degree, Arthur C. Clarke. Andre Norton was also a major influence: I think I read Moon of Three Rings half a dozen times as a kid. Robert Silverberg’s Revolt on Alpha C is one of the first SF books I can remember reading, and had a big influence. (Later on, his book The World Inside contributed mightily to my sex education.) Another SF book that made a big impression early on was Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Colours of Space. Other influences: Clifford Simak. John Christopher. More recently, C. J. Cherryh comes to mind as an influence. On the fantasy side, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, of course, and Andre Norton, again.Favorite authors aren’t quite the same list as influential authors. Heinlein is still on there, and Cherryh, and Tolkien, and Norton. Diane Duane. I read everything Pratchett writes, and I’m a fan of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. Patrick Rothfuss (a fellow DAW author!) is a favorite based on The Name of the Wind. Scott Lynch’s Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies were great fun and I’m looking forward to more. I mentioned Novik earlier. Robert J. Sawyer is another favorite, and Dave Duncan, too. John Varley. Joe Haldeman. Allan Steele. Lots and lots of favorites, in other words! Why did you decide to become a writer, out of all things you could possible do in this world? Likewise, what drove you to science fiction as opposed to, say, stories about teddy bears?I’ve always been a huge reader, and one day when I was 11 years old, a friend and I
Tweets for Today
Here’s my random twitter nonsense for the day: 10:39 So begins day one of me feeling like crap. Wonderful. In other news: I may get something written today. # 13:27 Okay, so crisis temporarily averted. What to do next? Write, read, get a plane ticket. # 14:00 I’ve discovered the value of doing things really early rather than at the last minute… # 15:32 You know, I loved "The Breakup" right up intil the end when they didn’t get back together…at that point the movie became retarded. # 17:24 Windows XP vs. Vista (quick analysis): Slow, but relatively stable after SP2 to fast, flashy, but with some kinks. They’re tied right now. # 17:25 Windows vs. Mac: The "can do anything and everything" system, with some kinks, to "crappy interface and no fun" system. Windows wins! # Thanks for not exploding. Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Endings: To be happy or not to be happy?
I was watching an interesting program today, even though I should have been doing something else, and I became rather interested in something I saw, so much so that I actually want to write a story that incorporates a similar idea (it’s a documentary). The thing is, it’s dealing with a grim subject that I’m going to set in the future and, given that, I’m not sure if I want it to end happily.So my question is this: does a story (and in particular a short story) have to end happily? Could one end a story at an extremely low point, perhaps with some resolution to certain aspects of the story, but with the main character not technically achieving his or her main goal?What do you all think? (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)